


Masqueraders

by Nivena



Category: All New Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider (Comics), Loki: Agent of Asgard, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Ms. Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Ambiguous Universe and Timeline, Gen, Genderfluid Loki, High School, Kamala's Shapeshifting Powers, Kamala-centric, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6997102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nivena/pseuds/Nivena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kamala's first major solo mission for the Avengers: go undercover at Hillrock Heights High and find out the identity of the newest Ghost Rider.</p><p>It probably wouldn't have been such a big deal, but then Loki gets involved.</p><p>(cue the alt-rock)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. moving

**Author's Note:**

> look man, i want my fucking kamala khan/robbie reyes teenage rom com, and i will write it my damn self if i have to. (though im not sure abt romance. not yet)

Of all the many wonderful applications for Kamala's powers, the ability to just shapeshift her nails instead of painting them had to be the best. No more anxious waiting and air-drying, no more streaks of color across all her clothes, just the simple satisfaction of watching her nails shift and change color.

She sighed and looked around the empty house. There was a time when she never would have found herself missing the loud arguments, the calls for "Kamala, dinner!" or the smell of chai and turmeric. How things have changed.

Her computer beeped loudly with the specific tone she had set for Tony Stark, prompting her to get up from the couch and navigate her way past the still unopened boxes that populated the "living room". Resting on the edge of the beat up thing she called her dinner table, was the computer she was using to communicate with the Avengers.

TONY STARK:

_First day of school. Don't be late._

Wow. Thanks, Tony.

Kamala stretched, then clicked through the rest of her messages.

CAROL DANVERS:

_Make me proud, kiddo._

LOGAN:

_You still owe me a gyro._

STEVE ROGERS:

_You're going to do fine. I'll email you again on Monday, but it's perfectly okay if you don't have anything to report. Missions take a while. One took me about fifty years ;-P_

AMMA

_I'll miss you so much while you're away, sweetie. Ask that patriotic captain of yours when the soonest you can be back is!_

Kamala blinked back a few sudden, stubborn tears and swallowed a bit at the sudden scratchy heat in her throat. When she was told that she'd have to move halfway across the country for a mission, she hadn't really realized just how much of an emotional toll that would have been. But now, faced with this empty house she'd have to live in for god knows how long, she kind of wanted to take it all back. She had really thought she was ready to take on undercover assignments, and she had wanted to make Tony proud. When Iron Man nominates you for a mission, one does not simply turn it down. And she'd really thought she was ready.

Turns out it was a lot harder than the superheroes make it seem. At least she didn't have to actually die.

* * *

On her way to school, she fished the last of her cinnamon gum out. She had bought it impulsively at the Circle Q Bruno worked at, one last slice of home. She wasn't going to see that corner store again for a long while, and she wasn't going to smell that convenience store smell, or hear trashy pop music while sitting with friends or-

On one level, Kamala recognized how ridiculous it was that she was getting nostalgic over gum. The other levels were stuck somewhere between wailing for Nakia and desperately attempting not to cry.

Hillrock Heights High, despite it's amazingly alliterative appellation, was a rather normal school. There was so much graffiti that you could tell the janitors had just given up and there were stains of long-dead gum dotting the ground. The buildings themselves were closed campus, squat and square, with lots of window and lockers.

It wasn't too different from Jersey, honestly. If it weren't for the empty house she was living in, and the complete lack of friends, and her new kid status.

So, quite a bit different from Jersey.

The halls were swarming with people, speaking and conversing over each other. There was an arrhythmic squeak and slam of lockers, coupled with the distinct roll and smack of skateboards. High and low and English and Spanish and husky and smooth and sweet voices made up the buzz of noise in the crowd Kamala plunged herself into.

She hiked up her backpack and tried to force her way through. There wasn't quite a current of students, more of a mosh pit of bodies, fighting to go their own way. In the confusion, she stuck to the walls and counted off each sign.

"English, Room A-17, Wakeford," she repeated to herself, over and over again. Just in case she forgot. The rooms were numbered weird, but she was pretty sure it was just down the… There it was!

The door was open, and if it was possible at all, it was even more cacophonous inside. Drawing her hoodie tighter around herself, she carefully stepped in and grabbed the desk nearest to the door. Hopefully nobody sat there.

A couple crumpled paper wads bounced off her desk, and she retreated a little further into her seat. She didn't want to look behind her, but she was certain that there were people staring.

Why couldn't they have waited until August to start her assignment? The new kid in March attracted so much more attention.

"Class," The teacher stood up from his desk, and pitifully attempted to quiet them down. "Plea- Please don't throw things," he compromised, sitting back down hurriedly.

Kamala was so engrossed in trying her absolute hardest not to touch anything underneath the desk (,because _ew,_ ) that she barely registered the guy standing over her.

"Oh! Uh, hi? Can I... help you?" She asked, internally screaming.

"You're in my seat."

"Shit!" She quickly got out, gathering up her things. "Uh, where's the nearest empty se-"

He pointed to the desk next to his. She got down, closed her eyes, and took a very deep breath.

_Relax. You got this. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can go back home._

She opened her eyes, then turned to study the guy next to her. He was quiet and efficient, putting his bag down beside his chair and simply staring straight forward. It was creepily robotic, and she would know. _Was_ he a robot? It wouldn't be the weirdest thing she'd seen in a high school. He was latino, with a blonde streak in his hair. Thick brows, and, strange enough, heterochromia. She immediately began focusing more. Weird eyes, in her experience, were _never_ a coincidence. One was a normal green, and the other was… was that orange? Red? It didn't look natural, whatever it was.

He kind of fit the profile, too. About six feet, thin, not very talkative.

If she wanted to go home, she had better find out who the new Ghost Rider is, and fast. And this guy had just became Kamala's prime suspect.


	2. reliving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamala is, after all, a minor. Who better to be her guardian?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more focus on kamala, but we'll switch over to robbie soon enough
> 
> (i can't decide if i should do POV switches or not???)

Kamala really liked showers, for one very important reason. Zoning out.

 

Baths forced you to think about things, mostly because there really wasn't much else to do. But, showers, showers she could just blank out in. It helped that California was under drought, so she couldn't justify a bath to herself anyways.

 

The water kept drumming against her back, pattering against the floor in a way that made her acutely aware of the fact that she couldn't hear anything past her bathroom. It reminded her a lot of the rain over the rocks when she had to pretend to be buried a- don't think about that.

 

Don't think. Zone out. You can't think about that. She took a deep breath again, shaking loose the memories of dust in her lungs and the pressure of the rocks aaaaaand she was thinking about it again.

 

Logically, she knew that she'd have to fake the deaths of one of her identities. Obviously, she'd picked Ms. Marvel. It was easier to explain away a revived or reborn superhero, seeing as none of them ever stayed that way. And it helped separate Kamala Khan, exchange student, from the Avenger who lost her life three months later, in Jersey during the city's almost fatal burial.

 

None of this meant she had to like it. Sure, she'd much rather liked to give up Ms. Marvel than Kamala Khan, but being a superhero made her feel better. She had powers, and using them for others made her feel like a good person. Like she was making Carol Danvers proud.

 

She shut off the water. This wasn't helping. Carefully, she opened the door and pulled her towel from the rack. One aggressive towel off later, she had a t-shirt and sweatpants on, and settled on her bed. Her homework lay forgotten on the corner of the cardboard boxes she'd stacked up to make a nightstand, abandoned in favor of the computer she was currently clicking through.

 

Her fingers danced an inch over the keys as she tried to think of something to google.

 

"Robbie Reyes" got her a couple linkedin profiles and a facebook. None of them belonged to the quiet kid in her class. Sighing, she typed in Ghost Rider into her adress bar. She's looked him up so many times already that it automatically filled in the rest for her. The google page was full of purple links, telling her "Last visited: Yesterday."

 

In absence of anything left to do, she clicked the wikipedia link on top. Before she could scroll down the already memorised paragraphs, there was a knock on her front door.

 

Immediately, she was on edge. Nobody was supposed to know that she'd moved here, and she'd only been to one day of school so far. Who could possibly be at her door?

 

Cautiously, she shut her computer and walked to the door. She strained to look through the peephole in the wood, which was meant more for adult-sized humans than her. Shifting her legs to be slightly taller, she finally got a good look at the person on the other side of the door.

 

Loki.

 

Hurriedly, she threw open the door and ushered the Norse god into the house.

 

"Hey Kama-"

 

"What are you doing here?" She whispered frantically, shutting the door and leaning against it. "In your costume? You are so lucky nobody noticed you!"

 

Loki stopped her for one second. "Uh, no. I  _ do  _ have magic, you know." They snapped their fingers, and suddenly, Kamala was looking up at a blonde woman in a hoodie and jeans. Loki snapped their fingers again, and resumed their original form: tall, long haired, and wearing a horned crown.

 

"That," she pointed at the bright golden crown, "had better not be a visual pun about your current mood. And this better not be a booty call or whatever."

 

"Oh, god no! You're like, fifteen, and I think I'm twenty. Ish."

 

"You  _ think _ ?"

 

"Yeah, I went through like five reincarnations in a row, it was very  _ Doctor Who _ , and I even made a friend and got a very chic bracelet out of it. Say hi, Verity!"

 

Loki's blue bracelet glowed. "Hi."

 

Of course the bracelet talks.

 

"Hello, uh, Verity," Kamala responded. Her mother taught her to always be polite to everyone, and she assumed that sentiment extended to glowing bracelets.

 

"This is Verity. She's a ghost now, but she swallowed a ring as a baby and now she can always discern the truth. She's a living lie detector-"

 

"I call Loki on their bullshit, mostly."

 

" _ Her _ bullshit, today," Loki interjected with an Oscar winning smile.

 

"I call Loki on her bullshit," the bracelet amended. "It's nice to meet you, Kamala. Why does it hurt when I look at you?"

 

The bracelet can look at people?

 

"Kamala's a shapeshifter, I  _ was  _ a bit curious as to how it would work with your powers…" Loki trailed off, staring at a specific spot in the air. Was that a ghost? Verity's ghost, maybe?

 

"Loki! I'm not a  _ science fair experiment _ ! You can't just throw me at things and see what happens, and for god's sakes, don't intrude in people's homes for this!"

 

"Actually, about that-"

 

" _ Loki! _ "

 

Kamala cleared her throat, and shifted back to her normal appearance. It wasn't dramatically different, just a few cosmetic changes. Her nails resumed normal shape and color, and her face became a little more acne splotched. Hey, if you had shapeshifter powers, you'd clear up your acne too!

 

"Um, Ms. Verity, does this make it easier?" Kamala asked cautiously, looking uncertainly at the spot where Loki had been addressing.

 

"Actually, yes."

 

"Great," Loki smiled beatifically, "we have a deal."

 

"We have a what now?"

 

"Yeah," the bracelet agreed, "what now?"

 

"Well, I  _ was  _ looking for a place to crash, and it  _ may  _ have come to my attention that there is currently a  _ minor  _ living alone in the big bad city of LA! So, I'm here to be your guardian, for the time being!"

 

"The Avengers don't know about this, do they?"

 

"... No."

 

" _ Loki _ …." the bracelet warned again, sounding thoroughly done with the god.

 

"Sure."

 

"Wait, come one, ple- did you say 'sure'?"

 

"Yeah. It's lonely here."

 

Loki smiled even brighter this time. "So, we  _ do _ have a deal!"

 

Kamala shook her hand, and then retreated back to her bedroom. She could hear the odd pair heatedly debating from behind the thin walls, and there was a certain sense of comfort in it. If she closed her eyes, it sounded a bit like Baba and Dada arguing about who knows what.

 

Opening her computer again, she clicked through the links under Ghost Rider, yet again.

 

"Who are you?" She sighed, tapping her fingers against the screen. "And why do the Avengers want you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> loki and verity are an old married couple tbh


	3. interlude- morning routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our first bit from Robbie's POV. Too bad it's like 100 words long.

_ Wake up. _

 

"Gabe," Robbie called, "Breakfast's ready!"

 

It took Gabe a couple tries to reverse and get out the door correctly. The house wasn't built for a wheelchair, and it showed.

 

"Oh! Frosted Flakes! My favorite!"

 

"You say they're all your favorite."

 

"Yeah… so?"

 

Robbie laughed as he mixed his instant coffee powder into his mug. It smelled overwhelmingly of caffeine, and not much else.

 

He screwed his eyes shut and swallowed it all in three gulps. Pebbles of powder remained on his tongue, and would probably annoy his until his lunch break. At least the bitter taste banished all notion or want for him to go back to sleep. Ignoring the world would have to wait.

 

"Robbie! Let's go!"

 

He grabbed his jacket and bag, calling out a quick "Coming!" over his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 

"Girl, are you ready yet!" Loki called, doing… something to the kitchen table. There was a knife and a bowl of green stuff involved, and Kamala emphatically did not want to know. Verity waved from the couch.

 

She tore open the granola bar lying on the counter -orange wrapper so it's peanut butter- and cast about looking for her sweatshirt. It was April and the skies were uniformly grey, washing the color out of the landscape. The air held a sharp promise of rain, and she was not about to be caught in it without an extra layer.

 

She finally spotted it lying inside out over the top of an empty cardboard box, a remnant from her moving in.

 

"Loki, have you seen my backpack," she asked, and  _ how was this her life _ ? Asking the Norse god of mischief to help her get ready for school was not on any list of things she'd ever foreseen for herself.

 

They gestured vaguely to the countertops, not looking up from the table leg they were scratching at with a butterknife.

 

"Right, okay, bye!"

 

"Bye," Verity responded, newspaper open in her hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok leaving for like five weeks so yeah. don't expect anything more until then. yeah.


	4. machinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamala gets crackalacking on her plan to find and expose Ghost Rider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed my mind. this fic isn't so much a rom com as a... platonic rom com? Kamala Comes To Terms With Her Character Development And Befriends Dumb Fire Skeleton Guys On The Way. that.
> 
> also i apologise for literally taking almost a year to update this its just How I Am. junior year is killing me and writing is hard.

Kamala tore the sheet of paper off her wall with all the resignation of a man about to be unjustly hanged. In front of her, mocking her, was the month of April.

 

April 1st would have originally meant Kamala celebrating the school year's end in sight. Now, it just meant she had 78 days until June 17th, when senior year ended. She wondered dully if she was going to graduate here. She had 78 days to catch Ghost Rider, who hadn't made an appearance in weeks. It was almost like he knew someone was on to him.

 

Or her. Kamala wouldn't dismiss the possibility of it being the redheaded girl she saw around the school, tall and self-assured. She walked with confidence, a confidence that could be born of having crazy unholy demon powers. Or, a confidence born of being really hot. Could go either way.

 

She sighed, turning her dramatically morose gaze to the kitchen table. On it were four items: Verity's bracelet, a bowl full of what used to be milk and is now green slime, a black felt pen, and last year's yearbook that Kamala stole from Mr. Baxter's teacher's office. She had a few faces circled, upperclassmen who seemed like they could be Ghost Rider. She annotated the portraits with notes of who started which fight, and who won, hoping there was a clue in that, but it just made it that much messier. Kamala finally understood the pull of corkboards and string.

 

"I still think it's the heterochromat," Loki said, sitting on the counter and swinging his legs. "Nobody ever has weird eyes for no reason."

 

"His hair's weird, too," Verity agreed sagely. "Gotta be your guy."

 

Kamala sat down heavily at the table and frowned. "Okay, but he could be weird in a way that has nothing to do with Ghost Rider. It's LA, the only place with more superhero shenanigans in New York."

 

"Kamala, he has an orange eye and Ghost Rider is a skeleton that's always on fucking fire. Color-wise, he's thematically coherent." Loki paused to sniff. "Unlike you."

 

"You're just jealous 'cause I'm cuter than you," she said without missing a beat. "Anyways, might as well investigate this guy first."

 

"You'll need to get close to him first, see if there's anything particularly 'flame skeleton warrior'ish about him," Loki said.

 

"Oh, that's easy. He's a math tutor. I'm failing math."

 

Verity raised an eyebrow. Loki grinned. "Very Mean Girls. Except, I'm fairly sure any google search of your name turns up hundreds of pictures of you at the Tri-State Ultra Mega Science Fair," he said.

 

"Oh." Kamala blinked. "Shit." She blinked again. "You know Mean Girls?"

 

"Of course I know Mean Girls," Loki said, "I'm the God of Stories, which means I'm omnicintly aware of all stories, including alt-rocky teen rom-coms."

 

"Liar. He watched it for the first time at my house, and cried like a baby at the prom scene," Verity clarified.

 

"It was very heartfelt!"

 

"Anyways," Kamala said, filing away that information for later, "can't you just erase those off the internet? You're like, a magic god. God of magic. Magic."

 

Loki winced. "Sorry kid," he said, "the internet is forever."

 

Kamala sighed. "Well then, I guess I'm just gonna go for it and hope he never googles me."

 

"Good plan," Loki said, getting up to leave.

 

Verity snorted. "Liar," she said from the couch. Loki flipped her off on his way out of the room, leaving Verity and Kamala alone together.

* * *

 

It's not that Kamala disliked Verity or anything. Actually, she noticed the books that had been appearing around the house, and there was no way Loki gave a shit about pure mathematics, which meant there was actually someone to  _ talk  _ to for once about stuff that didn't involve magic and storytelling (as cool as that was). It was just that, well, Verity was a walking lie detector, which apparently extended to Kamala's shapeshifting powers. And sure, it's been almost a year and a half since Kamala was insecure enough to pretend to be someone else as an alter ego, but, well, she couldn't help but feel very aware of herself whenever she shifted in front of Verity.

 

It was all small, dumb things she was second guessing. She'd spent a lot of time on the "brains not beauty" side of things, and she'd certainly spent more time than she wanted to admit ridiculing the other side of the equation. It's only been a few years since she ever let that go, and sure, people change faster when they're young, but she can't quite shake the feeling that her new acceptance of herself, of everything, is not quite true. That when she tells herself that she doesn't want to be white, or she likes being Kamala Khan, Pakistani-American, it's just a lie she's desperately trying to speak into being. And every time she changes a feature, makes herself a little taller or clears up her skin or messes with her eyebrows, she feels Verity's eyes on her, and can't help but second guess herself.

 

"That shapeshifting thing," Verity says, and  _ christ _ this is the  _ exact  _ conversation Kamala didn't want to have, "how does it work?"

 

Kamala blinks. That wasn't what she was expecting. "Uh, I guess it's like another body part? Or something? I don't know, when it first happened, it felt like my skin was all tensed up, like a full-body migraine and it was like suddenly having a sense I didn't know how to use."

 

"You weren't born with it?"

 

"What? No. Wait. I don't  _ think  _ so? Actually, wait, yeah, I was."

 

"I can't believe you just gave me three different answers without lying."

 

"Ah, it's really…  _ complicated  _ and I sort of don't understand it myself, which makes this  _ even more _ complicated." Kamala wrinkled her nose. "I'm not entirely human? At least, I don't think so. So technically, I've always had these powers, it's just I didn't know until this Terragen mist two years ago, and honestly, I'm not totally sure how everything actually works. I got superhealing though - found out when someone shot me and the bullet just fell down my pants. The more I superheal, though, the less I shapeshift, so back home, I kinda didn't use it too much. Now though, I don't get injured too much, so… I've been trying out shapeshifting."

 

Verity looks aghast. "Someone  _ shot  _ you?"

 

"Yeah," Kamala shrugged, "but it was my best friend's brother, and an accident. Plus, insta-heals!"

 

"Huh. I forgot that you're, like, a superhero. With crazy superhero stories."

 

"Yeah," Kamala smiles, "most people do. Speaking of, did I ever tell you how I met Loki? He crashed my school dance and spiked the punch with honesty juice."

 

Of course, Verity demanded to hear the story, and Kamala obliged, and Loki didn't even try to stop it from the other room because he was probably duty bound by his weird space viking god powers to let Kamala tell the tale of the time she punched him in the face and made him ward her school.

 

All in all, a Sunday well spent.

* * *

April in California seemed to have been designed to make up for the arid brightness of every other month. The entire sky was silver-lead grey and the air was mildly humid without the heat Pakistan usually offered. Kamala stepped into another puddle and flexed her definitely now wet toes inside her sneakers. She should have worn multiple pairs of socks.

 

The school usually had students spilling out all over the front lawn before the first bell, but now everybody was inside, under a roof, due to the threat of rain. It gave a slightly claustrophobic feel, stepping inside the hallways and maneuvering around rings of seated freshmen and huddles of conversing sophomores. Robbie was in her first period class, but he was also in math with her fourth period, so she'd wait until then to approach him and ask for tutoring.

 

The day could literally not pass quick enough. Usually, Kamala  _ loved  _ school. She loved her classes, loved hanging out with friends, even loved the stability the constant schedule brought into her life. But without her friends, without her brother in law, and Nakia, and Mike and literally  _ everyone _ she knew, it was just a boring, slightly depressing drudge forwards.

 

When she got back, she was  _ so  _ taking Nakia and the rest on an intergalactic roadtrip of friendship. She's pretty sure Tony owes her that, at least.

 

Fourth period finally,  _ finally _ rolled around, just as the clouds let up and the sun broke through. As Kamala walked to math, she tilted her face to the light like a human sunflower and let herself relax.

 

She was almost an adult. She'd been an Avenger for a year, and a superhero for almost two. She kicked ass and took names. She was totally going to catch this homicidal Ghost Rider dude, get back home, graduate on time, and keep her unweighted 4.0 while she was at it.

 

She has  _ got  _ this.

 

Just as she finished her impromptu pep talk, she rounded a corner and immediately sighted Ghost Rider Suspect Number One talking to Ghost Rider Suspect Number Two. Wow. She had no idea if this was good luck, or bad. Either way, shockingly fate-y. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. She  _ was _ pretty well known for being brash as hell.

 

"Hey, Robbie, right?" She asked.

 

Suspect Number One looked over. "Who wants to know?" he asked. Anybody who used the phrase  _ 'who wants to know' _ should always be doing it with a glare, or at least a frown, but it seemed Reyes didn't expend any energy into facial expressions that he didn't have to. Weirdo.

 

"I'm Kamala," she said, sticking her hand out. "I need a tutor for physics?"

 

She totally  _ didn't _ , by the way, but she was an Inhuman shapeshifter living with the God of Lies, so she could totally fucking act like she did.

 

Robbie turned to Suspect Number Two, the redheaded girl, totally ignoring Kamala's goodwill gesture hand. Fine, whatever. She dropped it.

 

"Talk to you later, Lisa," he said. She nodded, sharp and decisively, then smiled brightly at Kamala as she walked out. Kamala mentally bumped her up to Suspect Number One, because she could definitely get away with murder with a smile like that.

 

The new Suspect Number Two regarded her with narrowed eyes. "I'll talk to Mr. Dub about it. You got a start day in mind?"

 

Kamala smiled sheepishly. "Well, today or tomorrow would be best. I have a test Wednesday. Wait, Mr. Dub? Isn't he an English teacher?"

 

"He handles all the after school stuff and extra credit for the school. Can you give me your address? I can make 6-8."

 

Kamala can immediately hear  _ exactly _ what her mother would say if she heard about Kamala inviting strange men into her home and hanging out with them alone. Amma would instantly have her call it off, stop investigating, and go home to New Jersey for good measure. She would absolutely, under no circumstances, allow Kamala to give a strange man her home address.

 

"Sounds great!" She says, and gives him her address.

Fourth period was the last period of the day, and the fact that they were covering polynomials, stuff Kamala could do  _ in her sleep, _ meant she had way too much time to plan. She wasn't even a fan of planning, not really. That was Amadeus or Miles's thing. She was more of a fan of the spur of the moment brilliant idea.

 

But still, here she was, planning. As much as she tended to ignore her Amma's advice, she did have to take into account the fact that Ghost Rider  _ was  _ a terrifying homicidal serial killer with fire powers who happened to also beat up bad guys too. And she just gave her number one suspect her home address.

 

**_To: Verity_ **

_ hey stay home tonight im having suspect number one over for tutoring session but he won't do anything if there are witnesses. _

 

**_From: Verity_ **

_ will do. _

 

Well, that was one contingency taken care of. She checked the news next.

 

Local news on google turned up nothing, so plan A was a bust. Good thing she lived with a walking Plan B.

 

Wait, that came out wrong. Whatever.

 

**_To Loki:_ **

_ hey i need ur help in like three and a half hours _

 

**_From Loki:_ **

_ Sounds intriguing! _

 

**_To Loki:_ **

_ u text so fuckin weird. anyways at 6:30 cause a giant disturbance and draw ghost rider out. i wanna test a theory. no casualties please. _

 

**_From Loki:_ **

_ Anything for you! Have fun!!!1!! ;-P _

 

Kamala spent precisely three seconds wondering who it could possibly be who taught Loki how to use emojis, figured out it was Kate Bishop in two, and vowed to hit her in the face next time she saw her for letting him use noses in emoticons in one.

 

Whatever. Plan set. Time to execute.

* * *

Kamala and Verity had just spent a very frantic hour hiding all evidence of Weird Viking Alien Magic that Loki tended to leave lying around. There was so much of it, and all of it was weird, so Kamala made Verity the Sometimes Ghost get rid of all the slimy stuff.

 

Verity had just flung a jar of eyeballs ( _ eyeballs? seriously, oh my god???) _ under the sink when the noise of a car parking at the curb startled them both into freezing. Kamala had then, in the way that realisations and emotions worked, very suddenly remembered that she was 85% sure that Robbie Reyes was Ghost Rider, and Ghost Rider was an unrepentant killer.

 

Fear bubbled up in her chest before Kamala very sternly reminded herself that both Lisa and Mr. Dub knew Robbie and Kamala were meeting at 6-8, Verity was a witness, and Robbie had no reason to suspect her of anything, let alone murder her.

 

With the wall of rationality repressing her sudden fight-or-flight instincts firmly in place, Kamala grabbed the remote, switched on the TV to the local news station before muting it, and strode over to the door to welcome her guest.

 

She opened the door and watched Robbie get out of his car.

His car which was Dodge Charger.

 

His car which was the same car that Ghost Rider drove.

 

Oh man, this bitch was so fucking guilty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a Small (actually very long) Note about Kamala's powers: so I actually checked and in the first volume of Ms. Marvel, the one that ends with "The Last Days Of Ms. Marvel", it says that the more she heals, the less she can shapeshift, but it doesn't say anything about her actually /losing/ the ability to shapeshift completely. furthermore, in the lead up to Civil War II, iron man vol. 2, issue 11 has Kamala fully shapeshift and pretend to be Rhodey, and the dialogue with Tony suggests that she's done stuff like that before. the most obvious answer is just that the writers kinda forgot kamala could completely shapeshift (and has a rogues gallery? and kamran exists?) but listen. my Inhuman daughter deserves better. anyways im just gonna keep going forward w the fic under the impression that kamala, for lack of a better phrase, shuffle around her skill points between speed healing and shapeshifting. she usually prefers to sink everything into healing (because my girl KEEPS GETTING HURT ALL THE TIME) but that totally doesn't mean once she's out of constant danger she can put all her points back into shapeshifting.
> 
> by the way, in that first volume she also shapeshifts into a sofa? she can become inanimate objects? the writers well and truly dropped the ball on this one and i am eternally irritated about it.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: dreampunk.tumblr.com
> 
> If you have a prompt you'd like to see written, send me an ask over there! or if u just wanna talk!


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